TEACHER EVALUATIONS: LET THE BATTLE BEGIN

It’s muscle-flexing time for the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers. Today, the state Senate Education Committee will take up a bill by Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, that would adopt a formal state standard for evaluating teachers. But since one of the evaluation factors is student performance, the CTA and CFT have declared war on SB 441.

Why? Because the unions don’t think a teacher should ever be fired except for depraved behavior, and even then some union leaders say, “Not so fast.”

Thankfully, some prominent California Democrats have figured out that the CTA and CFT don’t want what’s best for students – especially those in poor neighborhoods who are routinely taught by interns, the inexperienced and the incompetent. This realization has taken firm hold among Los Angeles-area Democrats such as Calderon, former state Sen. Gloria Romero and L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

No wonder. It was in L.A. Unified that statistical research by The Los Angeles Times found radical differences in the performance of economically disadvantaged students in the same school – depending on their teachers. That obliterates the union argument that students and their parents are solely responsible if students do poorly in school.

This may or may not be the year the tide turns in Sacramento. But with the hold-teachers-accountable crowd including Villaraigosa, Romero, Calderon and President Barack Obama, it’s becoming harder and harder for the CTA and CFT to pretend that education reform is just a shabby corporate power play. Good.